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Bankruptcy Law

2008

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Helping Families Save Their Homes: The Role Of Bankruptcy Law: Hearing Before The S. Comm. On The Judiciary, 110th Cong., Nov. 19, 2008 (Statement Of Professor Adam Levitin, Geo. U. L. Center), Adam J. Levitin Nov 2008

Helping Families Save Their Homes: The Role Of Bankruptcy Law: Hearing Before The S. Comm. On The Judiciary, 110th Cong., Nov. 19, 2008 (Statement Of Professor Adam Levitin, Geo. U. L. Center), Adam J. Levitin

Testimony Before Congress

No abstract provided.


Chapter 15 Of The Bankruptcy Code And Its Implicit Assumptions Regarding The Foreign Exchange Market, John J. Chung Oct 2008

Chapter 15 Of The Bankruptcy Code And Its Implicit Assumptions Regarding The Foreign Exchange Market, John J. Chung

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Report To The American Bankruptcy Institute: Prevalence Of Substantive Consolidation In Large Public Company Bankruptcies From 2000 To 2005, William H. Widen Apr 2008

Report To The American Bankruptcy Institute: Prevalence Of Substantive Consolidation In Large Public Company Bankruptcies From 2000 To 2005, William H. Widen

Articles

No abstract provided.


Against Financial Literacy Education, Lauren E. Willis Mar 2008

Against Financial Literacy Education, Lauren E. Willis

All Faculty Scholarship

The dominant model of regulation in the United States for consumer credit, insurance, and investment products is disclosure and unfettered choice. As these products have become increasingly complex, consumers’ inability to understand them has become increasingly apparent, and the consequences of this inability more dire. In response, policymakers have embraced financial literacy education as a necessary corollary to the disclosure model of regulation. This education is widely believed to turn consumers into “responsible” and “empowered” market players, motivated and competent to make financial decisions that increase their own welfare. The vision is of educated consumers handling their own credit, insurance, …


Identifying And Keeping The Genie In The Bottle: The Practical And Legal Realities Of Trade Secrets In Bankruptcy Proceedings, Sharon Sandeen Jan 2008

Identifying And Keeping The Genie In The Bottle: The Practical And Legal Realities Of Trade Secrets In Bankruptcy Proceedings, Sharon Sandeen

Faculty Scholarship

Anyone who has been paid attention to developments in the world of business over the past quarter century can attest to the fact that intellectual property (IP) is a hot commodity. Indeed, in contrast to the companies that emerged out of the Industrial Revolution, the companies that have spawned as part of the so-called “Information Age” attribute much of their value and future prospects to intangible, rather than tangible, assets. Unfortunately, while bankruptcy courts have generally recognized the need to distinguish between tangible and intangible assets, particularly when determining whether a claim is secured or unsecured, they often fail to …


Section 524(G) Without Compromise: Voting Rights And The Asbestos Bankruptcy Paradox, S. Todd Brown Jan 2008

Section 524(G) Without Compromise: Voting Rights And The Asbestos Bankruptcy Paradox, S. Todd Brown

Journal Articles

Section 524(g) of the Bankruptcy Code was adopted to protect unknown future asbestos personal injury victims' rights and prospects for financial recovery. To serve these goals and satisfy the demands of due process, Section 524(g) provides two basic forms of virtual representation for future victims - requiring the appointment of an independent legal representative and aligning the interests of future victims with current claimants (75% of whom must approve any plan that invokes Section 524(g)). In recent years, however, the 75% super-majority vote requirement has been transformed into a veto power wielded by a small group of law firms, who …


Straddle Obligations Under Prepetition Contracts – Prepetition Claims, Postpetition Claims Or Administrative Expenses, Laura B. Bartell Jan 2008

Straddle Obligations Under Prepetition Contracts – Prepetition Claims, Postpetition Claims Or Administrative Expenses, Laura B. Bartell

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.


From Debtors’ Prisons To Prisoner Debtors: Credit Counseling For The Incarcerated, Laura B. Bartell Jan 2008

From Debtors’ Prisons To Prisoner Debtors: Credit Counseling For The Incarcerated, Laura B. Bartell

Law Faculty Research Publications

No abstract provided.


Trends In Distressed Debt Investing: An Empirical Study Of Investors' Objectives, Michelle M. Harner Jan 2008

Trends In Distressed Debt Investing: An Empirical Study Of Investors' Objectives, Michelle M. Harner

Faculty Scholarship

Increased creditor control in chapter 11 cases has generated considerable debate over the past several years. Proponents of creditor control argue that, among other things, it promotes efficiency in corporate reorganizations. Critics assert that it destroys corporate value and frequently forces otherwise viable entities to liquidate. The increasing involvement of professional distressed debt investors in chapter 11 cases has intensified this debate. In this article, I present and analyze empirical data regarding the investment practices and strategies of distressed debt investors. Based on this data and actual case reports, I reach two primary conclusions. First, although relatively few in number, …


Comparative Cause And Effect: Consumer Insolvency And The Eroding Social Safety Net, 14 Colum. J. Eur. L. 563 (2008), Jason Kilborn Jan 2008

Comparative Cause And Effect: Consumer Insolvency And The Eroding Social Safety Net, 14 Colum. J. Eur. L. 563 (2008), Jason Kilborn

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

This paper explores the connection between social welfare reform and the adoption of consumer debt relief law in Europe. Health care expenses and unemployment are significant contributors to overindebtedness in Europe, and outside the primary sources, one finds suggestions to the effect that the unraveling social safety net was a major contributing factor in the adoption of consumer debt relief laws in Europe in the 1990s. This paper critically analyzes this notion by tracking the recent scaling back of social assistance programs in Sweden, Germany, and France, and comparing that movement with the adoption of consumer insolvency regimes in those …


An Empirical Economic Analysis Of The 2005 Bankruptcy Reforms, 24 Emory Bankr. Dev. J. 327 (2008), Thomas Evans, Paul B. Lewis Jan 2008

An Empirical Economic Analysis Of The 2005 Bankruptcy Reforms, 24 Emory Bankr. Dev. J. 327 (2008), Thomas Evans, Paul B. Lewis

UIC Law Open Access Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


Debt And Democracy: Towards A Constitutional Theory Of Bankruptcy, Jonathan C. Lipson Jan 2008

Debt And Democracy: Towards A Constitutional Theory Of Bankruptcy, Jonathan C. Lipson

All Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the relationship between bankruptcy and constitutional law. Article I, § 8, cl. 4 of the Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power to make “uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies.” While there are many good social, political and economic theories of bankruptcy, there has been surprisingly little effort to explore what it means to have constitutionalized financial distress. This article is a first step in that direction. Constitutional problems with bankruptcy are not new, but present three under-appreciated puzzles: First, why have we put a bankruptcy power in the Constitution, and what does its “peculiar” …


Randomness And Complexity In Social Explanation: Evidence From Finance And Bankruptcy Law, Bernard Trujillo Jan 2008

Randomness And Complexity In Social Explanation: Evidence From Finance And Bankruptcy Law, Bernard Trujillo

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Who Needs Bankruptcy Law?, Edward R. Morrison Jan 2008

Who Needs Bankruptcy Law?, Edward R. Morrison

Faculty Scholarship

This essay summarizes four papers: “Bargaining Around Bankruptcy: Small Business Distress and State Law,” 38 Journal of Legal Studies 255 (2009); “Bankruptcy’s Rarity: An Essay on Small Business Bankruptcy in the United States,” 5 European Company & Financial Law Review 172 (2008); “Small Business Bankruptcy and the Bankruptcy Abuse and Consumer Protection Act of 2005,” A Report to the United States Small Business Administration (2007); and Douglas G. Baird & Edward R. Morrison, “Serial Entrepreneurs and Small Business Bankruptcies,” 105 Columbia Law Review 2310 (2005).


Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study Of Consumer Debtors, Robert M. Lawless, Angela K. Littwin, Katherine M. Porter, John A. E. Pottow, Deborah K. Thorne, Elizabeth Warren Jan 2008

Did Bankruptcy Reform Fail? An Empirical Study Of Consumer Debtors, Robert M. Lawless, Angela K. Littwin, Katherine M. Porter, John A. E. Pottow, Deborah K. Thorne, Elizabeth Warren

Articles

Before 2005, many people went broke and many filed for bankruptcy. After 2005, many people still go broke, but not so many file for bankruptcy. Why has the number of bankruptcies declined? Surely it is not the economy. All throughout the 2000s, families have been under increasing economic pressure. Median family incomes have declined, basic expenses have risen, and families are shouldering unprecedented debt loads. Defaults remain high for credit cards and car loans, while mortgage foreclosures have soared. By 2008, over half of all Americans reported that their incomes were falling behind their cost of living. These data all …


Selling It First, Stealing It Later: The Trouble With Trademarks In Corporate Transactions In Bankruptcy, Xuan-Thao Nguyen Jan 2008

Selling It First, Stealing It Later: The Trouble With Trademarks In Corporate Transactions In Bankruptcy, Xuan-Thao Nguyen

Articles

Why does AI get two bites of the “Apple” trademark? Should AI be allowed to grant the right to use the trademark “perpetual and exclusive” with the sale of the music division and steal it back for free, ten years later? This article is part of an ongoing and broader inquiry into the intersection of trademark, contract and bankruptcy laws. This article argues that recent bankruptcy decisional law, notably the In re Exide Technologies decision, misunderstands the “perpetual and exclusive” trademark transaction, deeming it as an ordinary “license” when it is truly an outright sale. This article explains that the …


Who Tolls The Bells For Firms? Tales From Transition Economies, Katharina Pistor Jan 2008

Who Tolls The Bells For Firms? Tales From Transition Economies, Katharina Pistor

Faculty Scholarship

Bankruptcy law is regarded as an important mechanism for protecting creditor rights. Much of the current debate about bankruptcy law focuses exclusively on private creditors, ignoring the role of tax authorities as creditor in insolvent firms. Based on data from several transition economies, this essay documents the important, if not dominant, role tax authorities play as initiator of bankruptcy in these countries. While improved tax enforcement is crucial for tackling the problem of tax arrears and hardening the "soft budget-constraint" in former socialist countries, this essay suggests that the presence of the tax authorities as creditor may also affect the …


Developments In The Laws Affecting Electronic Payments And Stored-Value Products: A Year Of Stored-Value Bankruptcies, Significant Legislative Proposals, And Federal Enforcement Actions, Sarah Jane Hughes, Stephen T. Middlebrook, Patricia J. Allouise Jan 2008

Developments In The Laws Affecting Electronic Payments And Stored-Value Products: A Year Of Stored-Value Bankruptcies, Significant Legislative Proposals, And Federal Enforcement Actions, Sarah Jane Hughes, Stephen T. Middlebrook, Patricia J. Allouise

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.


Balancing Competing Interests In Bankruptcy: Discharge By Certificate Of The Official Assignee In Singapore, S. Chandra Mohan Jan 2008

Balancing Competing Interests In Bankruptcy: Discharge By Certificate Of The Official Assignee In Singapore, S. Chandra Mohan

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

After more than a hundred years, Singapore made major reforms to its bankruptcy laws in 1995. These changes attracted considerable public interest, with the Government taking pains to emphasise that the new law was designed to strike a balance between the interest of the debtor, the creditor and society. The greatest scrutiny of the provisions, to determine whether in law and in practice the competing interests of debtors and creditors could effectively be balanced, was in respect of the discharge provisions. In this article, the writer, who was then the Official Assignee, discusses how the novel remedy of discharge by …


Who Owns 'Hillary.Com'? Political Speech And The First Amendment In Cyberspace, Jacqueline D. Lipton Jan 2008

Who Owns 'Hillary.Com'? Political Speech And The First Amendment In Cyberspace, Jacqueline D. Lipton

Articles

In the lead-up to the next presidential election, it will be important for candidates both to maintain an online presence and to exercise control over bad faith uses of domain names and web content related to their campaigns. What are the legal implications for the domain name system? Although, for example, Senator Hillary Clinton now owns "hillaryclinton.com", the more generic "hillary.com" is registered to a software firm, Hillary Software, Inc. What about "hillary2008.com"? It is registered to someone outside the Clinton campaign and is not currently in active use. This article examines the large gaps and inconsistencies in current domain …


(Almost) Everything We Learned About Pleasing Bankruptcy Judges, We Learned In Kindergarten, Nancy B. Rapoport, Roland Bernier Iii Jan 2008

(Almost) Everything We Learned About Pleasing Bankruptcy Judges, We Learned In Kindergarten, Nancy B. Rapoport, Roland Bernier Iii

Scholarly Works

In this essay, we demonstrate that most ethics violations (at least the ones that irritate bankruptcy judges) are also violations of simple rules of behavior that people should have learned in kindergarten.


A Study Of Consumers' Post Discharge Finances: Struggle, Stasis, Or Fresh Start?, Lois R. Lupica, Jay L. Zagorsky Ph.D. Jan 2008

A Study Of Consumers' Post Discharge Finances: Struggle, Stasis, Or Fresh Start?, Lois R. Lupica, Jay L. Zagorsky Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

The postwar U.S. has experienced an extremely sharp rise in consumer bankruptcies. What happens to these consumers financially after filing for bankruptcy? Do filers catch up with their non-filing peers, stay a constant distance behind or fall further behind over time? This question is investigated empirically using a new set of financial and bankruptcy data obtained from a large national random survey of bankruptcy filers and non-filers. Along some simple financial dimensions, such as car ownership, bankruptcy filers are not disadvantaged compared to non-filers. Along more complex indicators, such as total income and net worth, filers catch up over time …


The Case For Symmetry In Creditors' Rights, Richard Squire Jan 2008

The Case For Symmetry In Creditors' Rights, Richard Squire

Faculty Scholarship

Using an original framework for evaluating bankruptcy rules, this article casts doubt on the efficiency of legal arrangements that give some creditors an absolute advantage over others in the division of a debtor's assets. Such arrangements, which I classify as asymmetrical, are widely used in the modem economy, and include the secured loan, American general partnership, and guaranty contract. In contrast, symmetrical arrangements, which include the corporation and common law partnership, confer no absolute advantage, because they give each creditor group a prior claim to a distinct debtor asset pool. I demonstrate that symmetrical arrangements produce lower debt appraisal costs, …


Illness And Inability To Repay: The Role Of Debtor Health In The Discharge Of Educational Debt, Rafael I. Pardo Jan 2008

Illness And Inability To Repay: The Role Of Debtor Health In The Discharge Of Educational Debt, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

For a debtor to obtain a discharge of student loans in bankruptcy, the debtor must establish that their repayment would impose an undue hardship. This Article presents the results of an empirical study of bankruptcy court doctrine over a ten-year period that involved undue hardship discharge proceedings where the court reported information on the debtor's health status, monthly household income, and monthly household expenses. The data show that a medical condition increased a debtor's odds of being granted a discharge by 140% but that household income and expense levels did not have a statistically significant association with legal outcome. These …


The Utility Of Opacity In Judicial Selection, Rafael I. Pardo Jan 2008

The Utility Of Opacity In Judicial Selection, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

Does too much transparency in the selection of judges undermine the independence of the judiciary? This Essay seeks to provide insight into answering this question by focusing on the opaque process by which federal bankruptcy judges are selected. Part I begins with an account that anchors the concepts of judicial independence and judicial accountability to the concept of judicial quality. It proceeds to situate within this account the selection process, suggesting that the process can function as a form of judicial accountability, albeit one that diminishes judicial quality in those instances where the process becomes politicized. A brief discussion follows …


The Corporate Governance And Public Policy Implications Of Activist Distressed Debt Investing, Michelle M. Harner Jan 2008

The Corporate Governance And Public Policy Implications Of Activist Distressed Debt Investing, Michelle M. Harner

Faculty Scholarship

Activist institutional investors traditionally have invested in a company's equity to try to influence change at the company. Some of these investors, however, are now purchasing a company's debt for this same purpose. They may seek to change a company's management and board personnel, operational strategies, asset holdings or capital structure. The chapter 11 bankruptcy cases of Allied Holdings, Inc. and its affiliates exemplify the strategies of activist distressed debt investors. In the Allied cases, Yucaipa Companies, a distressed debt investor, purchased approximately 66% of Allied's outstanding general unsecured bond debt. Yucaipa used this debt position to exert significant influence …


Algorithmic Entities, Lynn M. Lopucki Jan 2008

Algorithmic Entities, Lynn M. Lopucki

UF Law Faculty Publications

In a 2014 article, Professor Shawn Bayern demonstrated that anyone can confer legal personhood on an autonomous computer algorithm by putting it in control of a limited liability company. Bayern’s demonstration coincided with the development of “autonomous” online businesses that operate independently of their human owners—accepting payments in online currencies and contracting with human agents to perform the off-line aspects of their businesses. About the same time, leading technologists Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking said that they regard human-level artificial intelligence as an existential threat to the human race. This Article argues that algorithmic entities—legal entities that have …


Bankruptcy Vérité, Lynn M. Lopucki, Joseph W. Doherty Jan 2008

Bankruptcy Vérité, Lynn M. Lopucki, Joseph W. Doherty

UF Law Faculty Publications

In Bankruptcy Fire Sales, 106 Michigan Law Review 1 (2007), we compared the recoveries from the going-concern bankruptcy sales of 25 large, public companies with the recoveries from the bankruptcy reorganizations of 30 large, public companies in the same period. We found that, controlling for the asset size of the company and its pre-sale or pre-reorganization earnings (EBITDA), reorganization recoveries were more than double sale recoveries. In Bankruptcy Noir, a reply forthcoming in the Michigan Law Review, Professor James J. White values the same set of companies differently to reach the finding that the sale recoveries are not statistically significantly …


Florida's Beefed-Up Assignment For The Benefit Of Creditors As An Alternative To Bankruptcy, Jeffrey Davis Jan 2008

Florida's Beefed-Up Assignment For The Benefit Of Creditors As An Alternative To Bankruptcy, Jeffrey Davis

UF Law Faculty Publications

Two new corporate clients have been referred to you. The owners of both corporations have consulted lawyers about their struggling businesses and now seek second opinions. The first was advised by its attorney to file a Chapter 7 bankruptcy petition, the second was advised to file a Chapter 11 petition. You think both should consider an assignment for the benefit of creditors. Why? Stated simply, an assignment for the benefit of creditors, or an ABC, is normally much simpler and almost always less expensive than a comparable bankruptcy proceeding.' The substantial savings in expense results in larger payouts to both …


Bankruptcy Noir, James J. White Jan 2008

Bankruptcy Noir, James J. White

Articles

In Bankruptcy Fire Sales, Professor LoPucki and Dr. Doherty do two things. First, they present provocative data about the relative payoff to be had in Chapter 11 by a full reorganization compared with the payoff from a section 363 sale without a full reorganization. Second, they give a yet more provocative explanation for their data. Taking a page from Professor LoPucki's recent book, they blame the meager return that they observe on 363 sales on the unprincipled behavior of the lawyers, managers, creditors, investment bankers, and even judges involved in the sales. Messrs. LoPucki and Doherty's data appear to …